Chants for Socialists
Introduction
Introduction by Florence S. Boos
Text
Chants for Socialists. Socialist League Office, 1885. These were “The Day is Coming,” “The Voice of Toil,” “The Message of the March Wind,” “No Master,” “All for the Cause,” and “The March of the Workers.” "The Pilgrims of Hope,” “No Master” and “The March of the Workers” were published in the Collected Works, XXIV.
“A Death Song,” “May Day, 1892,” and “May Day, 1894” were added later and appeared in the 1915 edition as well as the Collected Works, XXIV.
“The Voice of Toil” ( I heard men saying, leave hope and praying, / All days shall be as all have been; )
Published Justice, vol. 1, 9 February 1884 and in Chants for Socialists, 1885, 6-7 [see here]. Included in Poems By the Way, CW, IX, 177-78. HM 6427, ff. 117a. and b., copy prepared by Morris for Poems by the Way from printed version of Chants for Socialists, pp. 6 and 7, with no verbal alterations.
I heard men saying, Leave hope and praying,
All days shall be as all have been;
To-day and to-morrow bring fear and sorrow,
The never-ending toil between.
When Earth was younger mid toil and hunger,
In hope we strove, and our hands were strong;
Then great men led us, with words they fed us,
And bade us right the earthly wrong.
Go read in story their deeds and glory,
Their names amidst the nameless dead;
Turn then from lying to us slow-dying
In that good world to which they led;
Where fast and faster our iron master,
The thing we made, for ever drives,
Bids us grind treasure and fashion pleasure
For other hopes and other lives.
Where home is a hovel and dull we grovel,
Forgetting that the world is fair;
Where no babe we cherish, lest its very soul perish;
Where our mirth is crime, our love a snare.
Who now shall lead us, what god shall heed us
As we lie in the hell our hands have won?
For us are no rulers but fools and befoolers,
The great are fallen, the wise men gone.
I heard men saying, Leave tears and praying,
The sharp knife heedeth not the sheep;
Are we not stronger than the rich and the wronger,
When day breaks over dreams and sleep?
Come, shoulder to shoulder ere the world grows older!
Help lies in nought but thee and me;
Hope is before us, the long years that bore us
Bore leaders more than men may be.
Let dead hearts tarry and trade and marry,
And trembling nurse their dreams of mirth,
While we the living our lives are giving
To bring the bright new world to birth.
Come, shoulder to shoulder ere earth grows older
The Cause spreads over land and sea;
Now the world shaketh, and fear awaketh
And joy at last for thee and me.
“The Day is Coming” ( Come hither lads and hearken, for a day there is to tell / Of the wonderful days a’coming when all shall be better than well.)
Printed as Chants for Socialists, No. 1, “The Day is Coming.,” 1884, a 10 page pamphlet. Included in Poems By the Way, CW, IX, 180-81. HM 6427, ff. 120 a., b. Copy prepared by Morris for printer of Poems By the Way from Chants for Socialists, pp. 3-5, with no verbal alterations. Also a copy with some corrections and variants, “The Days to Come,” in WMG J14G. [see here]
[WMG J14G]Come hither lads and listen, for a tale there is to tell
Of the wonderful days a coming, when all shall be better than wellAnd the tale shall be told of a country, a land in the midst of the sea,
And folk shall call it England in the days that are going to be.Then more than one in a thousand in the days that are yet to come
Shall have some hope for tomorrow, some joy in the ancient home.For then, (laugh not, but listen to this strange tale of mine!)
All folk that are in England shall be better lodged than swine.Then a man shall work and bethink him, and rejoice in the deeds of his hand,
Nor ye come home in the even too faint and weary to stand.Men in that time acoming shall work & have no fear
For tomorrow’s lack of earning and the hunger-wolf anear.I tell you this for a wonder, that no man then shall be glad
Of his fellow’s fall and mishap to snatch at the work he had.For that which the worker winneth shall then be his indeed,
Nor shall half be reaped for nothing by him that hath sowed no seedO new found wonderful justice! but for whom shall we gather the gain?
For ourselves & for each of our fellows, that no hand may labour in vain.Then all mine and all thine shall be ours, and no more shall any man grave
For riches that serve for nothing but to fetter a friend for a slave.And what wealth then shall be left us when none shall heap up gold
To buy his friend in the market, and pinch and pine the sold.Nay what save the lovely city, and the little house on the hill
And the wastes and the woodland beauty & the happy fields we till:The homes of ancient stories the tombs of the mighty dead;
And the wise men seeking out marvels, and the poets teeming head;And the painters hand of wonder, and the marvellous fiddle-bow
And the banded choirs of music -- all those that do and know.For all then shall be ours and all men’s, and none shall lack a share
Of the toil and the gain of living in the days of the world grown fair.Ah! such are the days that shall be! But what are the deeds of today,
And the hours of the years we dwell in that wear our lives away?Why, then and for what are we waiting? There are three words to speak
We will it; and what is the foeman but the dream strong wakened & weak?O why, and for what are we waiting? While our brothers droop & die
And on every wind of the heavens a wasted life goes by.How long shall they reproach us, where crowd on crowd they swell,
Poor ghosts of the wicked city, the gold crushed hungry hell?Through squalid life they laboured, in sordid grief they died,
Those sons of a mighty mother, those props of England’s prideThey are gone; there is none can undo it, nor save our souls from the curse;
But many a million cometh, and shall they be better or worse.It is we must answer and hasten, and open wide the door
For the rich mans hurrying terror and the slow-foot hope of the poorYea the voiceless wrath of the wretched, and their unlearned discontent
We must give it voice and wisdom till the waiting-tide be spent.Come then, since all things call us the living and the dead
And o’er the weltering tangle a glimmering light is shed.Come, let us cast off fooling and put by ease and rest
For the cause alone is worthy till the good days bring the best.Come, join in the only battle wherein no man can fail,
Where whoso fadeth and dieth, yet his deed shall still prevail.Ah come, & cast off all fooling for this at least we know
That the dawn and the day is coming and forth the banners go.
“All For the Cause” ( Hear a word, a word in season, for the day is drawing nigh, / when the Cause shall call upon us, some to live, and some to die. )
Published Justice, April 19, 1884 [see here], Chants for Socialists, 1885, 8-9, and Commonweal, March 16, 1889. Included in Poems By the Way, CW, IX, 185-86. HM 6427, ff. 125a, b, prepared by Morris for the printer of Poems by the Way from Chants for Socialists, pp. 8 and 9, with one change to the text, stanza 13.
We who once were fools and dreamers, then shall be the brave and wise. [is changed to]We who once were fools defeated then shall be the brave and wise.
Published Commonweal, 1885, vol. 1, 44. Portion of continuation of “The Message of the March Wind.” Included in Poems By the Way, CW, IX, 150-53 and is part IV of “No Master” ( Saith man to man, We’ve heard and known / That we no master need.)
Published in Chants for Socialists, 1885, 10. Included in Poems By the Way, CW, XXIV, 409. “The March of the Workers” ( What is this, the sound and rumour? What is this that all men hear,).
Published in Chants for Socialists, 1885, 11-12. Included in CW, XXIV, 410-11. “Down Among The Dead Men” ( Come, comrades, come, your glasses clink / Up with your hands a health to drink,).
Published in Chants for Socialists, 1915 version. Included in CW, XXIV, 412.
The March of the Workers
What is this, the sound and rumour? What is this that all men hear,
Like the wind in hollow valleys when the storm is drawing near,
Like the rolling on of ocean in the eventide of fear?
'Tis the people marching on.
Whither go they, and whence come they? What are these of whom ye tell?
In what country are they dwelling 'twixt the gates of heaven and hell?
Are they mine or thine for money? Will they serve a master well?
Still the rumour's marching on.
Hark the rolling of the thunder!
Lo the sun! and lo thereunder
Riseth wrath, and hope, and wonder,
And the host comes marching on.
Forth they come from grief and torment; on they wend toward health and
mirth,
All the wide world is their dwelling, every corner of the earth.
Buy them, sell them for thy service! Try the bargain what 'tis worth,
For the days are marching on.
These are they who build thy houses, weave thy raiment, win thy wheat,
Smooth the rugged, fill the barren, turn the bitter into sweet,
All for thee this day--and ever. What reward for them is meet
Till the host comes marching on?
Hark the rolling of the thunder!
Lo the sun! and lo thereunder
Riseth wrath, and hope, and wonder,
And the host comes marching on.
Many a hundred years passed over have they laboured deaf and blind;
Never tidings reached their sorrow, never hope their toil might find.
Now at last they've heard and hear it, and the cry comes down the wind,
And their feet are marching on.
O ye rich men hear and tremble! for with words the sound is rife:
"Once for you and death we laboured; changed henceforward is the strife.
We are men, and we shall battle for the world of men and life;
And our host is marching on."
Hark the rolling of the thunder!
Lo the sun! and lo thereunder
Riseth wrath, and hope, and wonder,
And the host comes marching on.
"Is it war, then? Will ye perish as the dry wood in the fire?
Is it peace? Then be ye of us, let your hope be our desire.
Come and live! for life awaketh, and the world shall never tire;
And hope is marching on.
"On we march then, we the workers, and the rumour that ye hear
Is the blended sound of battle and deliv'rance drawing near;
For the hope of every creature is the banner that we bear,
And the world is marching on."
Hark the rolling of the thunder!
Lo the sun! and lo thereunder
Riseth wrath, and hope, and wonder,
And the host comes marching on.
No Master
Saith man to man, We've heard and known
That we no master need
To live upon this earth, our own,
In fair and manly deed.
The grief of slaves long passed away
For us hath forged the chain,
Till now each worker's patient day
Builds up the House of Pain.
And we, shall we too, crouch and quail,
Ashamed, afraid of strife,
And lest our lives untimely fail
Embrace the Death in Life?
Nay, cry aloud, and have no fear,
We few against the world;
Awake, arise! the hope we bear
Against the curse is hurled.
It grows and grows--are we the same,
The feeble band, the few?
Or what are these with eyes aflame,
And hands to deal and do?
This is the host that bears the word,
No MASTER HIGH OR LOW -
A lightning flame, a shearing sword,
A storm to overthrow.